


mercy, softly breathed

by tortoiseshells



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Approximately Mid-June 1863, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, amputation mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23344741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: Yet another hospital denizen has been flirting with Sister Isabella, and it's interrupting supper.
Relationships: Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sister Isabella/Original Male Character
Comments: 7
Kudos: 6





	mercy, softly breathed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sagiow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Adoro Te Devote](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23250814) by [sagiow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/pseuds/sagiow). 



It had been a good day: Corporal Ruis, the transfemoral from Winchester, had not only survived the night – after breakfast he was even seen to smile! Doctor Foster, told sternly by his beloved that crowing did not become him (a rebuke softened by a kiss, which a passing orderly turned his blind eye to), went about with a spring in his step, whistling 'Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair'.

“A relative of yours, Foster?” asked Hale, irritably wiping his hands on a filthy kerchief. Jed Foster was a skilled physician, but – thought the other surgeon – hadn’t Hale’s own sense of pitch and phrasing. There was only so much off-tune merriment one could take.

“I’d like to think we are all a part of a Universal brotherhood. Are we not, Doctor?” Jed said airily, facetiously.

Hale muttered something under his breath, but Jed heeded it not, and went on his way.

His good mood continued through a long afternoon, the damp Virginia heat sitting like another presence in every ward. The bed-bound wits traded tossed casual commentary between themselves, picking over slow-moving news from the Mississippi campaigns and the impending admission of Western Virginia as its own state; in another room, there was a lazy game of poker being played between the recovering Chancellorsville casualties that Jed studiously ignored. They'd had news that Lee had moved into the Shenandoah, but what of it, when it seemed the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River could not possibly hold out much longer?

Supper came on time. Those who the schedules could spare ate mostly in silence, taking up small tasks between bites of their meal.

“There’s a young private making eyes at Isabella, again,” Matron Brannan announced, startling the scattered inhabitants of the library, slumped over tables or wilting into chairs like so much discarded linen.

“Catholic?” Foster asked, not moving to get up.

Matron _tsk_ –ed.“Ever met a McCarthy that wasn’t?”

“Shame. If only he’d been a rotten Protestant, we could have sent Hopkins to scare him off. What’s the penalty for marrying the opposite side these days, Chaplain?”

Hopkins cleared his throat and looked at his hands. “Most ministers would require the Catholic party to convert.”

“Only frightening for our little Sister, then. Nurse Mary, you succeeded in setting her last admirer straight?”

Mary looked up from her letter. “Yes, and I have taken my turn. Surely the Private McCarthy will respect the warning of the Executive Officer as much or better than he would that of a _lowly_ nurse?”

“Perhaps, but you raise an excellent point. We’ll send Miss Green.”

“Miss Green,” said Anne Hastings, minding both her tatting shuttle, and that neither young woman was here to speak for herself, “Couldn’t frighten a fly, much less an infatuated boy. I shall go, but the next admirer is your business.”

Anne set aside her bread and her work, nodding to the Matron as she left. The older woman’s hand went to her pocket, where a thin slip of a missive addressed to _Soeur Isabella_ rested. _It’d keep ‘til tomorrow_ , she judged, and returned to the ward.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Stephen Foster's "The Pure, The Bright, The Beautiful" - I considered pulling from "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" but alas, this one worked better.
> 
> Sagiow wrote _I expect "Guardian of Isabella's Vows" is a secondary function all Mansion House staff have to fulfill._ responding to my comment on _Adoro Te Devote_. I merely took the idea and went for a stroll with it. I wonder, who could be writing to Sister Isabella in French?
> 
> It's June of 1863 for Dramatic Reasons, because of who I am as a person.


End file.
